Many industrial and manufacturing processess consist in carrying out, either sequentially or simultaneously, certain specific operations on a workpiece. As an example, it may be desired to carry out a series of bending operations on a light metal tube, in order to give it a specific configuration which will adapt it to a machine for which it is designed. A typical way of carrying out such a manufacturing procedure is to bring about the various bends in the tube in a specific sequence from one end to the other, involving various pusher plates which engage the tube in sequence, thus bringing about the bends.
This process, and many related processes, require the machine to carry out what are essentially reciprocating movements. The reciprocation may be rectilinear or curvilinear, but either way, the concept of a single back-and-forth motion is involved.
The machine component provided herein is especially adapted and designed to be able to provide such reciprocating movements on command, and moreover is designed in such a way that it may be used, if desired, along with other similar components to fabricate very rapidly and inexpensively a complex machine capable of carrying out a number of sequential or simultaneous operations, all of which involve reciprocating motion.